


your body has become not yours only

by ninefish



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark!Obi-Wan, Gen, Mustafar AU, That's Not How The Force Works, The Dark Side of the Force, can be slash if u want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22658725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninefish/pseuds/ninefish
Summary: Obi-Wan, for a moment, Falls. The result changes everything.Or, Obi-Wan most certainly does not have the high ground and things don’t go as expected.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 143





	your body has become not yours only

**Author's Note:**

> because we love emotionally-stunted obi-wan bc of ineffective jedi parenting! (my take on if anakin became aware of all the suffering that resulted from his actions)
> 
> title is taken from "to a stranger" by walt whitman (bc i think the idea of strangers from a different lifetime fits that mustafar scene well)

When opponents saw Anakin and Obi-Wan together, the Chosen One and the Negotiator, they always underestimated the latter. After all, what was a tiny spark to the bonfire of the Chosen One’s presence? But that was their mistake. Anakin might raze, but Obi-Wan meticulously destroyed.

Anakin knew better. He didn’t underestimate Obi-Wan.

That’s why when he shouted for his former master to join him, he hadn’t truly hoped. Everyone else had left him already. The Council had forsaken him— even Padme, her crumpled body at his feet. He only had the Chancellor now (and _Anakin_ would be the one to toss off that decrepit fool).

Anakin moved forward, igniting his lightsaber and saw the despair fill Obi-Wan’s gaze. His eyes seemed to shatter in horrible, sadness— _that’s what you get for going behind_ my _back with Padme_ — and that was when Anakin felt it—

Anakin thought he had tasted the dark side. He had _bathed_ in it, in children’s blood, first on Tatooine, then in the Temple. But if his acts were only dabbling in the dark side, what Obi-Wan unleashed upon him was the unrestrained submission of a being.

Anakin was trying to bend the dark side to his will through his anger. Obi-Wan . . .

Only something so good could Fall so horribly and grotesquely.

Distantly, Anakin could hear Obi-Wan’s screams through his own.

His mind felt as though invisible hands— small, children’s hands— were tearing at his scalp, cracking open his head and gorging on the raw, abused brain matter. He could feel, across the universe, the vibrations of pain from his fellow Jedi— his _friends_ — as they were surely and violently torn down. The innocent, confused suffering still echoing through the Force of the younglings. The conflicted minds of millions of clones as they saw what they were doing but can’t stop _they must follow orders_ — the world was erupting into chaos as surely as the lava surrounding them.

Another scream tore from Anakin’s raw throat and he swore the firey air of Mustafar was burning him up from the inside out. This presence— this darkness that was coming from Obi-Wan didn’t allow him any respite. Anakin saw— he _felt—_

 _Pain_. So much pain.

Surely all this pain could not be happening at this present moment? Anakin struggled to contain the feeling of past and present suffering pressing down on his mind.

 _Padme_ , his love, her body failing (he wasn’t enough! He never was!). He felt life— birth— but the presences recoiled at his aura and he remembered the younglings. Innocents’ blood on his hands. He felt the weight of a million systems and peoples subjugated and fearful (always the fear. Always so much of it. He was supposed to be strong enough to _escape_ ). He felt as though his lungs were being crushed. His body was a cage— 

He felt the death of a planet, atoms bursting outward violently.

Anakin took a wracking breath through his sobs. His lightsaber had long fallen from his grasp— _that weapon is your life_ — 

“Please— no more,” he moaned.

He felt _everything_ (was this the Force?).

Anakin felt the soul of a young boy, pure and untainted. He felt the pure love he felt for his mother— _the only one, his family_. He felt another youngling— this one not with sandy blond hair but dark curls and an angry pout. He felt his anger— his fear. Anakin could feel the tremble in his fists when the boy whispered, “ _grandfather—_ ”

He felt a desert planet— not his own— and a girl that would change the universe. He felt as stars burst into existence and then vibrate through the Force as they died. Light and darkness— but so much more darkness— 

But underneath all of the universe clawing at his mind, Anakin felt _Obi-Wan_. The Chancellor’s Force signature was nothing to this terrible monument of corrupted goodness and kindness.

Obi-Wan fell to his knees, face twisted from composure to tears and— anger?

 _No,_ love— Anakin could feel Obi-Wan trying to reign himself in and it was all Anakin could do to keep up his ragged shields and not be destroyed in the onslaught. How fitting that Obi-Wan should kill him with the very thing that he swore off.

 _Love—_ what Obi-Wan had always warned Anakin about because attachments led to the dark side—

Anakin would have laughed if his mind didn’t feel as though it were melting.

Suddenly his mind was thrown back to that day— _the pod race_ — except he was on the outside, a spectator. He felt the presence of all the creatures around him, anxious, adrenaline running high— but none so high as the fear that came from _himself_. _Who will win?_ — then, _sadness_ — Qui-Gon— and rage— _Qui-Gon!_ — 

There was rage, Anakin dumbly realized as he succumbed to the weight of every emotion Obi-Wan had ever offered up to the Force— the perfect Jedi, indeed. The Force could no longer hold these offered gifts of a mind that was no longer holy.

“You have to— fight it— _Obi-Wan!_ ” Anakin said desperately. Miraculously, his master seemed to hear his pitiful cry and renewed his efforts of fighting the _hurt anger fear_ threatening to completely claw from his chest. Obi-Wan himself seemed overwhelmed by the feelings he had never truly acknowledged outside of throwing them away.

Anakin groaned in relief as the pressures around him eased but there was still the heavy, nauseating presence around him. For once, Anakin’s mind felt certain that it was the dark side and not the planet’s sulfurous atmosphere— but there was a strange quality to the Force. It wasn’t the normal, alluring feeling of raw power that the dark side often offered to Anakin. There was a certain filter to it, making the mass foreign and unwieldy ( _it’s being pushed back, put in a cage_ )

Anakin hesitantly looked up at Obi-Wan.

His eyes were red-rimmed and yet still blue. Cloudly, but blue. Anakin felt his rage (burning him up) return— even when he Fell, Obi-Wan was the faithful Jedi.

“Why do you hold yourself back?” Anakin screamed. “Just admit you’re just as ugly and weak as the rest of us!” _Us_. The Fallen.

“You’re right,” Obi-Wan panted. If not for the fact that Anakin was collapsed on the gritty soil, it would have felt like Obi-Wan was the defeated one. “I’ve failed.”

Then all Nine Hells broke loose.

Anakin’s mind was torn apart. Obi-Wan’s presence was there— permeating everything. _Hurt, anger, fear_ — and so much _love_. For Anakin. For every being in the galaxy. It was terrifying. 

The unadulterated feeling of energy was utterly mind-numbing— yet soothing like the powerful thrum of a cool river. Ruthless and uncompromising, like Obi-Wan. The darkness and lightness clashed but instead of harshness, there was resonance— Balance.

Anakin’s arms trembled as he tried to push himself up and he paused at the onslaught of the strange feeling of tranquility. For once, there was certainty in the message Obi-Wan sent to him through the Force. Obi-Wan poured himself into sealing away the darkness, shoving it back inside himself. What was left afterward— 

( _I_ _thought no one could love me like this. Not after mom—_ ) 

This selfless _giving_ was tearing Anakin apart.

( _There was always something after the Fall_ )

Anakin’s cells were vivisected— his DNA strewn across the galaxy in a blink— and reassembled. Destruction and creation. Dark and light.

In that moment, Anakin was reborn.

In that moment, that Anakin Skywalker dared to look up at Obi-Wan, terrified he would see the great Krayt dragon rearing up to finish him instead of—

( _His master, his friend, his brother_ )

But blue eyes stared into blue.


End file.
